Among the oldest Orthodox communities in Belarus is the St Eliseus Lavrishevsky Men’s Monastery, the first to spring up in Western Rus’ and Lithuania. You will find it in the Novogrudok District of the Grodno Region, not far from the village of Gnesichi.
Church tradition tells us that Venerable Eliseus of Lavrishevo himself established it around the year 1225. He chose a spot on the left bank of the Neman River, where the land curves, at the foot of a high hill, and dedicated the monastery to the Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos. In those first years, people knew it simply as the Lavrishevo Monastery of the Most Holy Theotokos.
Venerable Eliseus came from a noble line, the son of Prince Troyden in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. He received a fine upbringing and education, lived at the court of Grand Duke Mindaugas, and held a high state post. But his soul, pure and lifted high, grew sick of worldly honours and empty show. And so Eliseus turned his back on his wealth, his rank, and the ease of court life, and withdrew to a quiet place among the marshes on the Neman’s left bank. There, an ascetic gave him the tonsure. Some say he made this choice under the guidance of his spiritual father, Saint Lavrentiy of Turov.
Sadly, few details of Venerable Eliseus’s life survive. We only know that he met a martyr’s death at the hands of a demon-possessed youth who had come to the monastery for work. In a frenzy, the wretched boy killed the abbot. Yet the Lord did not leave him, for when he touched the body of the slain abbot, he was healed. Even in his martyrdom, Venerable Eliseus wrought an act of love.
At the abbot’s grave, many healings and other wonders occurred, most often the deliverance of those tormented by demonic possession.
Nor did Venerable Eliseus cease to watch over his monastery. Tradition holds that in 1505, he saved it from devastation by the Tatars. When the Tatars, led by Khan Mendy-Girey, had laid waste to the neighbourhood of Novogrudok and drew near to the Lavrishevsky Monastery, they saw within its walls a company of well-armed horsemen. Considering the odds to be against them, the raiders fell back without a fight. Little did they know that the monastery held no soldiers at all, but only monks dwelt there.
All this gave grounds to glorify the God-pleasing Saint Eliseus. The Council of Wilno, in 1514, numbered him among the Venerable Saints.
In 1650, Professor Albert Koyalovich, who was Rector of Vilnius University, wrote down a full Life of Venerable Eliseus, drawn from a Slavonic hagiography of the saint.
The veneration of Venerable Eliseus continues even today. His name was added to the Assembly of Belarusian Saints in 1984 under Metropolitan Philaret (Vakhromeev) of Minsk and Slutsk.
“Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house” (Matt. 5:15). Many seekers of the monastic life, novices and monks alike, flocked to the ascetic Eliseus. Together they raised churches in honour of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos and the Resurrection of Christ, and from these, in time, a monastery grew.
The Lavrishevo Monastery won the warm favour of the Lithuanian princes. They gave generously towards its growth, none more so than Prince Vaisvilkas, who in baptism was named Basil. The Hypatian Chronicle from the thirteenth century records how, in the 1250s, he set aside his princely title, took up the monastic life, and entered the monastery. A charter of donation also survives from Alexander Ivanovich Hodekevich, a courtier to King Sigismund I the Old, who granted the monastery his estate at Lychitsy.
Before long, with a great brotherhood now gathered, the monastery became a lavra, and its first abbot was Venerable Eliseus himself.
From the thirteenth century onwards, the Lavrishevo Monastery was a great spiritual wellspring and a stronghold of Orthodoxy on Belarusian lands. In the Neman region, it had the same standing as Polotsk and Turov did in their own territories. The monks kept a school and held a fine library.
The brotherhood also became the main place for the writing of chronicles. Around the year 1329, a Gospel was written by hand for the monastery, brought to life with eighteen pictures from the Bible. The Lavrishevo Gospel, in its weight, matches the Gospels of Polotsk and Turov. It can be set beside the Cross of Euphrosyne of Polotsk and the twelfth-century paintings in the Church of the Transfiguration in Polotsk. This treasure of Belarusian bookcraft is now kept in the Czartoryski Library in Kraków, Poland.
The relics of Venerable Eliseus had lain openly in one of the monastery’s churches. Yet, before the house fell to ruin in the mid-sixteenth century, the monks hid them deep in the ground, along with all of the community’s other precious things. Over the years, the Neman River changed its course, so that the old monastery came to be on the right bank, hemmed in by trackless swamps. The ground where the church and monastic buildings once rose fell into decay, slowly reclaimed by a pine wood. A devout soul, keen to keep the memory of that sacred spot alive, planted a lilac where the altar had once stood.
As the sixteenth century drew to a close, the monastery came back to life, now within the present-day village of Lavrishevo in the Novogrudok District of the Grodno Region. In the early 17th century the Uniates took control; from 1615, it fell to the Basilian Order. The Uniates put up a wooden church that still stands, a bell tower, living quarters, and a small stone house for their books and stores. The library held some five hundred books. A Uniate seminary also ran at the monastery.
The Catholics worked to root out the memory of the old Orthodox monastery: for its ruins, they made up a new name – Nezvishche.
At the turn of the twentieth century, the Orthodox built a small wooden church on the bank of the Neman, on the top of a low conical hill where the ancient monastery had been. The monastery came back to life, but its new days were to be short-lived. In 1914, the First World War broke out, and through the fighting the monastery burned down. The brethren had no choice but to leave the place for good.
For eighty long years the holy place lay in waste. Then, towards the close of the twentieth century, people came back once more. They cleared the thick woods that had claimed the land, and in the village of Lavrishevo, near the Dormition Church from 1775, archaeologists began to dig. Their work soon uncovered the foundations of a church, leading them to think that here, perhaps, the ancient monastery had once stood.
The community is now being rebuilt in the forest on the Neman’s right bank, across from the village of Gnesichi. In the year 2000, a new brick church of Venerable Eliseus of Lavrishevo was consecrated here. A parish formed at the church in 2001, and on 21 April 2007, the Holy Synod of the Belarusian Orthodox Church decreed that this parish should become the St Eliseus Lavrishevo Men’s Monastery.
The monastery is growing quickly. St Eliseus Church, where services are held daily, soon proved too small to hold all who wished to visit. So the brotherhood, clergy, pilgrims, and helpers set themselves to the task of making the church three times its size.
The abbot, Eusebius, conceived a further plan: to raise thirty-three chapels around the monastery’s edge — one for each year of the Lord Jesus Christ’s life on earth, each set aside for an event from the Gospels. From many holy places, even from the Holy Land itself, pilgrims brought back sacred earth in small packets and boxes for the new chapels.
Chief among the many holy images in the monastery is the one of Venerable Eliseus of Lavrishevo. Though a work of this present century, it has already wrought wonders. To this day, the holy remains of Saint Eliseus have not been found, though many have searched. Yet the brethren and pilgrims trust that the Lord, in His own time, will reveal the relics of His servant.
Also held in great honour is the icon of the Mother of God, “Console My Sorrows.” It is said the Theotokos lends a swift ear to the prayers offered before this image.
Those who come to the monastery often walk, too, to the monastic cemetery. Here rests the elder Schema-Archimandrite Seraphim, who fell asleep in the Lord but a few years past. While he lived, learned men, men of God, and people of every kind all made their way to him, for through him the Lord made known truths of the spirit that served to lead souls to salvation. And even now, he pleads for us before the Lord.
All who come to the Lavrishevo Monastery can speak of something deeply felt. Father Sergius Faley, a cleric of our monastery who once served here, remembers it this way:
“It is little wonder Venerable Eliseus chose this place; the Lord Himself must have pointed it out to him. Everything here draws you into harmony with the Creator and with nature. What a beautiful place it is! The Naliboki Forest is close by, and wild animals wander out, showing no fear. Along the Neman are the water meadows, where grasses grow so thick they stand taller than a man. Great old trees line the roadside. The whole sight stirs the heart! This is a blessed corner of the earth, far enough from the ‘world’. All this turns the heart to prayer…
But the dearest thing of all for me is what I felt in the monastery — the grace of the Holy Spirit. When that touches you, your whole life changes: the way you see God, other people, the world, and yourself. I remember one Great Lent, some years ago. The church had no heat yet, and the cold outside was bitter. We held the first service of anointing. As the people prayed, waves of warmth began to wash down from above. A first wave, then a second, and a third… Soon, everyone began to take off their coats. The joy was more than a heart could hold. It was nothing less than Heaven on earth. What a gift it is to know that God loves you and keeps you safe!”
Prepared by Novice Tatyana Kladieva
